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Trans kids, who knows best, BBC or child abusers?

Last week on BBC Two a documentary ran called Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best? On the surface it sounded objective enough until I read the description on the BBC’s website:

“where one of the world’s leading experts in childhood gender dysphoria (the condition where children are unhappy with their biological sex) lost his job for challenging the new orthodoxy that children know best.”

There were complaints too from some patients about the use of one-way mirrors, having their pictures taken without permission and too many questions about their sexual preference. One patient reported being called “a hair vermin” by Dr. Zucker when he stripped to the waist on request. A nine-year-old patient [was] asked about what made him sexually excited during his first meeting with a clinician in the initial assessment.

Reparative or conversion therapy is abuse. Doing that to a child is child abuse. Doctor Kenneth J. Zucker is a child abuser.

The documentary was a transphobic and hamfisted attempt to play the devils advocate, Lies and mistruths were abundant, such as the ‘80% of gender variant children just get over it’ lie, debunked here. It wasn’t until almost at the end of the documentary that it was pointed out that no children are ever given hormones until they are 16 and the surgery age limit is 18, which went against what was heavily implied throughout the whole documentary.

The filmmakers carted out some transphobic parents in an effort to make their point despite the independent review of Zuckers practices found that the concerns of parents about their children’s gender identity were often put ahead of what the best medical decision for the child might be. This is especially an issue for children who are gender-variant, as some parents might harbour transphobic views. The consequences of these decisions could be severe. The report details one instance when an older teenager was not referred for gender-affirming hormones because their parent disapproved. Of eight former GIC clients in the review that had very positive feedback about their experiences with the clinic, seven of them were the parents of patients — only one was a former patient.

A lot of people have complained to the BBC about the documentary and this is their response:

The response is quite insulting when you think about it, the “significant contributions from his critics” consisted of one trans man and less than 5 minutes screen time from actual gender identity specialist doctors. This is the kind of shameful concern trolling that gay people endured during the 80’s and 90’s, would a documentary featuring a doctor claiming to be able to cure gay children straight be given the same treatment?

There is a reason that transgender people are a protected characteristic under the Equality Law, right alongside other things that people have no control over, like sexuality, race and disabilities. The BBC would never show a documentary that featured a doctor who tells blind people that they just need to try harder at being cured without some serious scrutiny and explanation as to why they are delusional.

There are now volumes of scientific studies which show the benefit of supporting gender variant children to live how they want to live and express their gender in whatever way feels right to them. This is not a debate. Nobody is forcing transition on children and most importantly, there is no doctor allowing young people to take medication before they are 100% clear, consistent and insistent that they are gender variant and they are old enough to make those decisions.

By airing such an uncritical documentary which painted a child abuser as a maverick, forced out by “transgender activists” (no joke, Zucker actually claimed this) it is patently clear that someone high up at the BBC either supports or endorses his view that transgender kids don’t know best and can just be cured of their dirty transsexualism.